Ms Marryat wasn’t put off by Dickens’ harsh words. She went on to write 68 novels.

Dickens full letter is three pages long and pretty rude.

Here’s a longer excerpt:

Charles Dickens letter

‘I cannot, however, alter what seems to me to be the fact regarding this story (for instance), any more than I can alter my eyesight or my hearing.

‘I do not deem it suitable for my Journal.

‘You ask me to pass my pen over the paragraphs which displease me. Surely that is scarcely reasonable.

‘I do not think it is a good story. I think its leading incident is common-place, and one that would require for its support some special observation of character, or strength of dialogue, or happiness of description.

‘I do not find any of these sustaining qualities in it.

‘I am not interested in the young people, therefore, and I cannot put away from myself the unfortunate belief that the readers of All The Year Round would not be interested in them.

‘You have no idea of the labor inseparable from the editing of such a Journal as All The Year Round, when you suppose it within the bounds of possibility that those who discharge such duties can give critical reasons for the rejection of papers.

‘To read professed contributions honestly, and communicate a perfectly unprejudiced decision respecting every one of them to its author or authoress, is a task, of the magnitude of which you evidently have no conception.’